Songoftheday 11/3/17 - The wind is moving but I am standing still, a life of pages waiting to be filled...
from the album Go West Young Man (1990)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #6 (one week)
Weeks in the Top-40: 11
Today's song of the day comes from Contemporary Christian pop artist Michael W. Smith, who started out his career in Nashville as a keyboardist and singer for the gospel group Higher Ground, before touring with the genre's biggest star, Amy Grant, in the early 1980s. Helped out by Grant, Smith released his first solo album The Michael W. Smith Project in 1983, with lead single "Great Is The Lord" topping Billboard's Christian Radio chart. Through the rest of the decade, Smith became one of the biggest male stars of gospel music, scoring four more #1 hits on the Christian music chart, including 1986's "Rocketown", which topped the Christian Contemporary, Adult Contemporary, and Inspirational radio tallies. In 1990, Smith released his sixth studio album, Go West Young Man, which started the decade with yet another #1 Christian hit in the title track. But following the mainstream success of Grant's "Baby Baby", Smith's record company promoted his next single, the inspirational ballad "Place In This World", to pop radio, and the warm, David Foster-esque production of the song written by Smith and Grant with Wayne Kirkpatrick became his first national secular hit in a period where soft pop like Michael Bolton and Celine Dion were truly popular...
"Place In This World" became Smith's first and biggest pop hit in America, reaching the top ten in July of 1991. The single also climbed to #5 on Billboard's Adult Contemporary (or "easy listening") radio chart, spending eight months on that list, while also reaching #1 on their Christian Hits chart. A second single serviced to pop radio, the uptempo "For You", went to #60 on the pop Hot 100 and #20 on Adult Contemporary stations.
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Here's Michael performing the song at the Dove Music Awards in 1992...
...and again live in concert in Virginia the following year...
Lastly, from a show he did with Amy in 2003, He medleys "A Place In This World" with his other big pop hit, "I Will Be Here For You"...
Up tomorrow: British trio from the city provide premium passion.
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